This meeting, we highlighted food, food history, recipe collections, etc. via various websites and resources, and featured an exploration of the Bloomsbury Online Food Library (https://www.bloomsburyfoodlibrary.com/about-bloomsbury-food-library) Below are the resources we shared, and a brief Q&A with Melissa Mazza of the Digital Resources Division of the Bloomsbury Publishing Company.

Resources dedicated to everything Food!

https://wellcomelibrary.org/what-we-do/history-of-wellcome-library/researching-wellcome-work/

http://foodinthelibrary.com/culinary-exhibits-online/

https://programminglibrarian.org/learn/recipe-reading-culinary-literacy-your-library

https://perspectivesonreading.com/cooking-the-books-libraries-embrace-culinary-programming/

https://southernfood.org/sofab-culinary-library-and-archive

https://whatscookingamerica.net

Bloomsbury Food Library Q&A

Q- How old is the Bloomsbury Food Library? A-This resource launched 2-3 years ago

Q-Why was the Food Library started? A-The publishing team (of Bloomsbury Publishing) felt it meet a gap in the currently available digital resources. We have subscribers over the world and our main audience/purchasers are colleges and universities.

Q-We love the featured content on the Heritage of Spices… Who curates this? A-The featured content each quarter is decided upon by the editorial team with input from the marketing team.

Q-In general, what are the most popular resource requests? A- Our most popular resource is Drama Online and streaming content is big right now.  *Not food-related (https://www.bloomsbury.com/dr/digital-resources/products/drama-online/)

Q-What are future plans of the Library? Is there ever a possibility of a ‘brick and mortar’ location? A- The resource has new content added to it biannually and no, this is a digital resource, not an actual library, so there would be no plans for a physical location.